- Title: Musician Anderson .Paak gets in touch with his Korean roots for 'K-Pops!'
- Date: 24th February 2026
- Summary: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (FEBRUARY 11, 2026) (REUTERS) 4 (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR, ANDERSON .PAAK, SAYING: "There's a lot of things I could have pulled from the well of my life. And I've dealt with a lot of trauma, a lot of tragedy. But comedy, laughter, love, music, food, culture has always been the way to cope and to deal with it. So I wanted to, for
- Embargoed:
- Keywords: Anderson .Paak K-Pops! Kpop Music Son South Korea
- Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES; TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- City: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES; TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA; UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- Country: US
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Film,North America
- Reuters ID: LVA004729620022026RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Grammy award-winning musician Anderson .Paak is exploring his Korean roots with his directorial debut film "K-Pops!", which is due for release in U.S. cinemas on Friday (February 27).
Many musicians who venture into film want to show a dark side to their music, but .Paak decided to do a wholesome and colorful story about a musician who discovers he has a son while working on a K-Pop competition show.
"I'm a wholesome kind of guy," .Paak told Reuters in a Zoom interview to promote the film.
"There's a lot of things I could have pulled from the well of my life. And I've dealt with a lot of trauma, a lot of tragedy. But comedy, laughter, love, music, food, culture has always been the way to cope and to deal with it. So I wanted to for my first film. I wanted that to be what it was about," he added.
.Paak's mother was born in South Korea and adopted to an African-American family in Compton.
He was inspired to make the movie after bonding with his son during the global pandemic by making videos with K-Pop music. However, not everything went as planned.
The Silk Sonic musician said, "When I was writing the script, he was like 8 years old and was obsessed with K-Pop, and then by the time we were doing principal shooting, he's like 11 years old and he was like, went from loving K-Pop to loving Slipknot. So I was like, oh, man, okay, well, we're going to figure this out, you know? Contractually, we kind of got to do this now."
And the process of making his first film wasn't an easy one.
"I got my ass kicked a lot of times, just like, first time film, traveling, learning how to write a script, acting, doing original music, doing K-Pop music, learning about the structure of K-Pop music, doing Black music, trying to figure out how we're going to bridge it, the different, you know, managements and timing and everything. It was insane," he said.
But after a world premiere at the Toronto Film festivaF, "K-Pops!" is finally hitting cinemas.
"I hope people leave inspired," said .Paak.
"I hope people want to pick up an instrument, want to listen to some music they never listened to. I hope that they want to spend more time with the family. And I hope that the time that they spend with their family, I hope that they are present and, you know, having a good time."
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